Selected tracks in no particular order but in my view the highlights of my output. Thanks for listening! Yrs /DS

BEST OF PLAYLIST

SUMMER SNOWFLAKES: variations on a theme. Intended to be released at the first snow fall, but it never came... So I kept recording.

INSTRUMENTS used: Electric Guitar, two steel 6-stringed guitars, 12s guitar, classical guitar, two hardware keyboards (rendering the pianos, organs, bass guitar, chimes, bells, flutes, strings), pedal effects.

The music grew like a fractal in all directions and became quite vast in scope: should I have split it into shorter tracks? Many would say yes, but I didn't fancy that and instead went for the ”LP option"; an instrumental, meditative journey, inspired by the genre invented by Mike Oldfield in the 70s.

When I first heard his work, many years ago, I didn't first get it, but I was intrigued. "What is the purpose?" was my early reaction. But I couldn't shake it off and became hooked to the complexity of his instrumental music, and how it seemed to constantly mutate into new sections. I kept listening, and gradually discovered the many hidden secrets. And it led me to become very interested in classical music.

SUMMER SNOWFLAKES is made in this tradition. Not explicitly trying to mimic Mr. Oldfield, but admittedly clearly influenced by his method. And why not? Was it wrong that Brahms wrote symphonies just because Beethoven already had done nine legendary ones? Would the world have been a better place if Shostakovich had stayed away from writing Preludes and Fugues for the piano? Should no pop songs have been allowed after Beatles? I say, let us be shamelessly inspired by the gigants and make some efforts to create something! Throw an egg if you must, but I think any sincere attempt to compose is welcome.

When I decided to go for a full length track, my vision was (somewhat childishly) the thought of the younger myself; the days when I was a die-hard Oldfield fan and had stumbled upon a new release: always a rare event, an instant buy, running home, headphones on, expectations high, launching it: the first sacred discoveries ... My track may not live up to this, but is a tribute to those days and that feel.

The recording was quite an undertaking and I didn't want to let myself down. I worked on it since December 2018, and was occasionally quite frustrated about it. I avoided midi, and tried to hand-play it all (for the fun of it) - often leaving me in big trouble. I admit there are some sun spots due to this, but I consider them as my finger prints and evidence that a human did this, not a machine. .

Art cover: by DS 2021, reflecting the heavy reliance and overlaying of pianos and organs, and the combinational nature of the music.

Special Thanks to Mark Hermse, Mike Hilton and Wojciech Langner for support and inspiring discussions!

SUMMER SNOWFLAKES

Out of the ruins of another project rises a new track ... < R.I.P. "Conqueror" >. Variations on a theme, searching for gold, an assault on the ears.

Written and recorded by DS, because nobody stopped him. Dedicated to warriors of instrumental music.

OUTPOST

Captured on tape by DS during 2021/2022 under unclear circumstances. Shared with you via SoundCloud, in the form of a wav file. Downloadable for further analysis. Constructed via the usage of electric guitars, hardware keyboards and drum loops.

Science Fiction Soundtrack. (The 2nd part is still encrypted).  //DS 28/4/2022

THE DISCLOSURE

PEACE GUITARS; composed mostly outdoors during the 2021/2022 summers. The music was inspired by grand nature, desolated places, silence … I often brought the dog during these sessions and she enjoyed lying beside me, watching birds or boats passing by ... Hopefully the music will echo such moments ... 

Dedicated to graceful superior Vanja, my best friend.

DS 23th September 2022 (Project initiated 17th Sept 2021).

PEACE GUITARS

Inspired by Amarok! Global Presence! Riffs of the 70s!

This recording is the result of my most ’guitar-intensive’ period ever. It came as a reaction to what came before it, a period where I focused very much on the classical guitar but a moment came when I was fed up with polishing small details in my repetoar. One day, I felt an incredible hunger for riffs, for steel string guitars, and for going back to (progressive) rock music! I always loved the rock of the 70s, considering it as ’Mount Everest of the music history’ (classical music excluded here). An era where everyone was incredibly ambitious, when everything had to be handplayed, and when the broader audience had some considerable attention span ;)

I started to explore some riffs on my CORT steel string guitar, which had been collecting dust in a corner for a long time. It soon gave me the opening riffs and some additional riffs (e.g., around 5 minutes into the track). I quickly worked up the bulk of the track and got maybe half of the track done in just a few weeks (not counting later polishing, when I re-recorded some bits to get the sound I wanted). I got a vision of the completed track, a long progressive one - yes, for sure inspired by Oldfield and YES (favorites from this era!), but it was easier said than done to complete the track. Considerable work remained, as I was about to learn….

It was incredibly hard to finalize the composition and I almost gave up on it. I arrived at a moment where I seemed to have promised too much and where the Ear demanded some serious further action; many permutations tested, but nothing seemed to work. In the end, due to all this, I lost some control of the files (e.g., a key solo guitar is badly panned but I seem to be unable to find the raw data needed to fix it).

Extremely much work went into the last months, on a mission to crack it! Late nights, tinnitus, frustration! :) Finally I think I found what I needed (but who am I to know).. I had to accept some slightly less than perfect audio at some places: does it matter? Not to me, but the listener is the jury. I decided to go for attitude and energy rather than anything else… I hope you will enjoy what I discovered!

I doubt that cold-blooded perfect ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ever will replicate what a desperate Dave J. Svensson sounds like, late at nights with all controls turned to 11 on a scale from 0 to 10 …. ;)

The SHAMBOLIC GUITARS were:
- two 6s steel: CORT (rythms!) and OVATION (main recurrent theme!)
- a 12s FENDER (colour!)
- three electric guitars: IBANEZ (now sold), PRS & SCHECTER (dirt!)
- two classical guitars: CORT, KREMONA (clarity!)
Plus, a ROLAND keyboard (for some pads), and various hardware effect boxes.

Artcover by DS, featuring the guitars listed above.

//Dave, 6th October 2023

SHAMBOLIC GUITARS

*Some deny it, but the consensus is strong. As more and more data is accumulated, the cluster grows ever stronger. Will we act upon the warnings, break the trend?* 

Composed and recorded while working on another (longer) instrumental composition...  

Instruments: 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars, electric guitars, keyboards, midi-handplayed bass and percussion, + drum loops. 

Both ClusterOfWarnings and CambrianExplosion have been derived from themes also featured in my 25 min long multi-instrumental: 
https://soundcloud.com/davidjsvensson/long-instrumental-part1draft-ds2015
https://soundcloud.com/davidjsvensson/long-instrumental-part2draft-ds2015 

To re-use ideas, modify them, and let them be the basis for new compositions has a long tradition; already Vivaldi and Bach did this (all the time). From a theoretical standpoint, it interests me; how flexible and potent is a single idea ... 

Cluster of Warnings is possibly the piece I am most satisfied with, so far. 

I appreciate your time here, thanks in advance for any likes/repost/comments!

//DS

ps. Artwork by DS 2014.

THE CLUSTER OF WARNINGS

Excerpt from LONG INSTRUMENTAL part 1. 

Instruments: acoustic steel-string guitars, electrical guitar, keyboards, midi-played bass and drums, and drum-loops.

For further details, see: https://soundcloud.com/davidjsvensson/long-instrumental-part1draft-ds2015
https://soundcloud.com/davidjsvensson/long-instrumental-part2draft-ds2015


MYSTERY

COMPOSED AND PLAYED BY DS 2015-2016 using keyboards, organ, distorted electric guitars, acoustic guitars, midi-played bass, percussion & drum pads (and drum loops).
SPECIAL THANKS: to @tolubai for valuable feedback during the development phase.
* * * 
In the mood for something easy, clear-cut, and straightforward? Look elsewhere. EarthShine is a dark, experimental and slightly dissonant piece; clearly not intended for the charts, and with a rather unclear purpose ... (which, by the way, is entirely to the liking of the composer, with his evidently rather odd taste).

Initially concieved as a PRELUDE to the two-part instrumental published earlier (https://soundcloud.com/davidjsvensson/long-instrumental-part1draft-ds2015), taking one of the main themes into another iteration, in new directions.

The main theme, the slightly dissonant opening theme (based on a Gminor chord over the bass note H, followed by a Hminor chord), gets evolved into the more harmonical organ/synth sequence appearing multiple times in the final, thus ending this piece (and the entire suite) on a more positive note.

* * *

The rather odd music was partly inspired by ideas and discussions in 'Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies' (www.nickbostrom.com, Oxford University); a remarkable work apparently taken very seriously by e.g., B. Gates, and respected scientists such as M. Tegmark, S. Hawkings, and M. Rees.

"Artificial intelligence already outperforms human intelligence in many domains" [p.11]. Still, the idea of an intelligence explosion occuring in our life time is to many laughable, and, clearly, it is unknown if it can occur at all; we only know that Nature once rigged materia in such as way that high intelligence emerged (i.e., us) [insert your own interpretation here].

Some would argue that there are much else in the world to worry about first; but, is this a new kind of Manhattan Project actually coming up on the horizon, with potentially far-fetching existential consequences for Mankind?

It remains to be seen if it was correct to end the music with some hope.

//DS 2016



EARTHSHINE

Probing the landing site in wonderful total silence.
Recieving data, odd features visible.

____________________________________________________

WRITTEN 2016 BY DS IN COLLABORATION WITH TOLUBAI 
Keyboards, Electric Guitars, Drums Loops.
Further sections will follow.

(Link to TOLUBAI's excellent tracks: https://soundcloud.com/tolubai.)



SILENCE

COMPOSED AND PLAYED BY DS 2015-2017.

THE BEST OF 2 WORLDS is a work of variations, seeking to explore the potential of three main motifs. It also has three main parts (although flowing continuously) so, perhaps, '3' should have appeared in its title.

However, I used '3' for 3 WORLDS COLLIDE - the sister track to BO2W - born out of the same recording sessions. If you hear both tracks, you may hear how they share the same DNA (in particular, the synth-horn fanfare).

I like to think of 'BEST OF 2 WORLDS' as a Concerto for (say) 12 musicians: four keyboardists, two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, + four multi-instrumentalists playing all kinds of various odd ethnic instruments. Music to be performed on stage (although having some ambient and sequenced elements).

With this vision in mind, I tried to focus on archieving a certain live feeling; handplaying most of it, approximating what a performance on stage could sound like. Interactions between instruments, seeking a certain drive rather than perfect takes...

Would love to handpick fellow musicians from SC for such a concert! :)

The track: you might hear several spots, an unpolished feel at places, some slighty varying tempo due to handplaying, and some strange details; some of it due to lost masterfiles in a laptop chrash 2016, but overall I am happy anyway with the results. I hope my strong enthusiasm for the material should be detectable!

Sense how fun I had when exploring those three motifs scattered around everywhere, in various shapes! Carried away in late & dark recording sessions, trying to create ordered chaos, progression of the themes, a symphony of sounds!

BEST OF 2 WORLDS: the 1st movement opens slowly, and introduces the three motifs, before erupting in some more intensive passages; then, the 2nd movement is more of a low-key adagio; finally, the intensive 3rd section re-visits themes from the opening and returns home.

My sincere thanks for any plays/comments/likes - but more than anything else, my strong appreciation for you to just listening to it! Few will stay for the full 15 minutes, but, if so, hopefully detect all the main-motif mutations along the trip! (Which is what drives me to write so long pieces in the first place: to explore what the core idea can be used for...). 

Artcover by DS, photo taken by I. Svensson at Creete 2017.

/DS 17 Nov 2017

ps. The sister track is here: Davidjsvensson – Worldscollideds2017

THE BEST OF 2 WORLDS

REPORT FROM PLANET THREE: a 16 min long track based on some ideas emerging when I was exploring a new keyboard; the opening chords were among the first ever recorded - in "performance mode" (no midi) - and then other ideas grew out of it. I wanted to make a long and restless track with lots of related passages, variations on a theme... It started out rather electronically, but then I integrated the guitars, aiming for an ensemble approach; it took me a year to complete.

Most of it was recorded before the World Crises, but I now can't help to associate the sounds of the synth arpeggiators with the Virus flooding the Mankind. Although the music wasn't conceived as a statement over the new gloomy era, it is for me emotionally connected to it. When the music took shape, people started to die around us; personal values were at risk in the pandemic, when the virus probed a close family member for weaknesses for a prolonged period, resulting in severe pnemonia which almost took her life. For a more distant relative it was fatal.

For a long time, I intended to use these ideas for another big recording project. But then, I (rather late) realized that the material stands better on it's own - as a REPORT - and I am quite excited about it. The process was long and unpredictable, but that is the nature of composing ... All music was hand-played (if counting the arpeggiators and ignoring some drum programming) and overlaid using the DAW as a multichannel tape recorder (line-in, .wav), avoiding midi and accepting some non-fixable human error.

I understand that few will listen to it all (thanks if you did!) but I have always had a soft spot for longer tracks, where sections relate and share underlying DNA. A story, maybe our struggle for survival? Is the final too gloomy, should it have ended differently? But those complaining guitars at the end felt right to me, crying out their painful statements - a memorial over the losses, after our Ultimate Victory.

INSTRUMENTS: I used ROLAND and YAMAHA keyboards extensively, emulating synth sounds, organs, piano, bass guitar, and percussion. I also played my electric IBANEZ guitar through the BOSS ME80 pedal effects - including occasionally playing it as bass, and added (sparsely) some notes on my acoustic 6s Hagstrom and 12s GUILD. Both programmed drums and drumloops were used too, occasionally spiced by some extra ALESIS drumpad hits.

ARTCOVER: based on a photo taken 2018 by myself, arriving just in time at the southernmost spot of Sweden to capture the sunset while gathering up for the Blood Moon to appear.

A magical night, representing the great moments on Planet Three!

REPORT FROM PLANET THREE

THE FORECAST: an instrumental sketch written by DS in a thematic collaboration with Arctic Windhorse: special thanks to her for inspirational discussions, feedback and support during the recordings(which took place 2018-2019).

The music is slightly incomplete and has mixing issues but does it matter? Some human errors, yes; some non-fixable issues in the .wav master files, indeed. We welcome it as a blessing in times of coldblooded, perfect AI. Alive and kicking....

The most significant element of this track - the generator of the textures - is the analogue NORD A1, with it's rich pad layers. It is also symbolically fitting for a very nordic collaboration (Alaska and Sweden).

So what do we forecast? The answer is more bad weather.

NORD & Roland keyboards, vst bass guitar, electric guitar, Boss-ME80 pedal effects, acoustic guitar, drum loops, and cajun percussion.

THE FORECAST

Composer of multi-instrumental music, with a preference for longer, progressive and complexly arranged pieces.   

Have played guitar for many years, but I am probably a slightly odd type of guitarist. Not particularily interested in the guitar genre, not too keen on listening to long solos, etc. I don't enjoy playing for people - a party-killer, in short. However, leave me alone with this wonderful tool (or the keyboard, which I play too), and I will start experimenting with it, searching for something to develop. 

Strongly interested in classical music and anything remotely related to that. I want to construct music with a similar structure and complexity, although with other instruments, and in my own way...  
___________________________________________________________

During 2010-2013, I worked on a suite of related pieces, GUITARS PLAYED BY DS, with every sound played on the electric guitar. A major undertaking, and (all-in-all) 45+ minutes long, all complexly related and released in five segments.

During 2014-2015, the main focus was on the full-format 'LONG INSTRUMENTAL', a progressive work with lots of different instruments and sounds, restless and complex. Some sections stand on their own feet: MYSTERY, and FANFARE. 

The 2014-2015 recordings also resulted in two shorter pieces: CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION and CLUSTER OF WARNINGS.

During 2015 I initiated a suite played on classical guitars - GUITAR STRUCTURES. It is a series of slowly changing ideas, a weave of melodies and harmony, the first section out in April 2015 (the 2nd came 2 years later).  

I played guitars on Tolubai's wonderful ambient piece 'MEMORIES' (August 2015).

EARTHSHINE came out in January 2016; a darker and slightly dissonant progressive piece, and one of my personal favorites. So is SILENCE, out 1st July 2016. September 2016: IGNITION  with TOLUBAI and LET THERE BE LIGHT 22th Sept 2016 with PuppyWolf. 

20/11-2016: The OORT CLOUD PROJECT I-IX. An 18+ minutes long progressive synth-based instrumental, with lots of short guitar phrases integrated. Also, the spin-off PASSAGE was released. 

GROTESQUE released too in the end of 2016. The 19th January 2017, I released the sketch OMMA CONTRAPUNCTUS PROJECT. The 4th February 2017, the track '3 WORLDS COLLIDE' was released.

'Guitar Structure No. 2' out in March 2017, took 2 years to complete.

BEST OF 2 WORLDS was released in November 2017, another personal favorite composition.

APPROACHING: an unfinished sketch released 1st April 2018. TAURUS IV released 8th April 2018.

New Years evening 2019, quickly improvising a track: DECADE. Uploaded 23:58 local time. It was a very fun way of ending the year and I used a symbolic art cover with red sweeping in, but I wouldn't have dreamed of what was to come soon.

One main project this year is the SNOWFLAKES VARIATIONS suite; the Prelude was released in January 2020.

8th April 2020: CREATURES RISING was released. CREATURES OF THE RAINFOREST also a spinoff track (released 2021).

In the Lockdown March-April 2020, I recorded 'Era', out of frustration...

5th June 2020: REPORT FROM PLANET THREE, which was initiated 31st May 2019. 

31st July 2020: FORECAST was released. April 2021: SUMMER SNOWFLAKES, a 25 minute long track and perhaps my most ambitious ever. 

OCTOBER 22, 2021: OUTPOST. Was hell of a lot work behind this, which started out as the "Conquerer" project already in 2017. 

APRIL 28, 2022: The Disclosure (Part I).
SEPTEMBER 23, 2022: PEACE GUITARS. A track very dear to me, much of it written outdoors at the shores with my lovely dog with me. 

OCTOBER 6, 2023: SHAMBOLIC GUITARS.  Intensive recordings!

DECEMBER 7, 2024: TABOOOO released. (Oldfield Tribute)

SEPTEMBER 6, 2025: WATERFALL (part 1). Another part will follow in 2026!
 ___________________________________________________________
Many thanks for visiting here, and for the comments, 'Likes' & reposts.

D. Svensson Sept. 2022

*********************************************
All rights to the audio/tracks, and album photography are reserved, and respectfully belong to the owner. 

© DavidSvensson.